Alliance Member Focus: Flo

- Thank you so much, Flo, for being this spotlight of our member profile this Quarter! Tell us a little about yourself and your LotRO experience - how long you've been playing, your characters, favourite classes, etc.

Ooooh, gosh, I started playing in 2012, just before the Anniversary festival (I remember that the Anniversary festival was my first ever festival!). I’ve a few toons (although not many at all compared to some of our alt-o-holic kinnies!), within The Alliance there’s Flo (obviously!), Lychee – my old main, who is now happily retired and living out her days in the old Hobbits home, surrounded by food and Floh – my very little played Mini who is now mostly used for crafting and storage (poor lass). I’ve also a rather skilled cook, who coincidentally, owns my kin storage house (Flo’s Farmed Foods).

For the longest time, the Guardian was my favourite class, Lychee was the first toon I ever played and I loved her dearly, until *sinister music* one day, I finally got my act together enough to level her high enough to get a War Steed and from there, it sadly went downhill. Anyone who knows me will know my battle with the dislike of War Steed’s, and for me, once Lychee got her, that was the end of us. However, when one door closes another one opens and I found out that I love the Hunter class (in enters Flo). Aside from the numerous – very handy – ports, Flo and her War Steed are a much better duo than Lychee ever was. Although, I must confess, whenever I can I still engage in combat on foot! These Hobbit feet were made for walking!

LoTRO has to be one of, if not my favourite game. Prior to LoTRO I was exclusively a console girl and, although I still dabble on the PS4, I mostly prefer to LoTRO. It’s the only MMORPG I’ve ever played, but, who needs anything else, right?

- What social kin and server events are you involved in? Do you roleplay at all?

I’ve never been an RP’er. Prior to LoTRO I had no idea what RP even was and chose Landroval as a server way back when through the tried and tested ‘eenie, meenie, minie, mo’ system. I’ve been asked a few times – “why join an RP server if you do not RP?”. My answer is simple, because I was/am a noob, haha!.

At the moment, due to time constraints I no longer run anything within the Kin (although back in the day I used to run a ‘Grouping Practice’ every week). I’ve a vision for a two-weekly event (“Go with the Flo”), I’m just not sure what it will entail yet!

- You're a member of the Officer team, how do you like the position so far? What are some details of your role others may not think about, and what are your goals/visions for the kin and our alliances?

I truly enjoy being an Officer. It’s not the first time I’ve held the position. I first became an officer about a month (maybe two) after I joined The Alliance, when we were building our Kin into the fantastic community it is today. However, I voluntarily stepped down for a while last year as I was unable to commit as much time to the game and the Kin as I had previously. I won’t lie, I play LoTRO on my laptop, and, whilst I was pregnant my lap disappeared. . . which presented some problems when it came to playing haha! So in the end, I gave up and assumed my horizontal ‘beached whale’ position on the sofa until it was all over!

Being an Officer is sometimes a complex job, there’s our CoC to recall when interacting/watching others interact, sometimes reprimands need to be given to cheeky Kinnies who step over the line – a firm spank on the back of the legs! And sometimes you’re called upon to mediate in tricky situations. However, due to the nature of our lovely Kinnies, this isn’t often needed. Although we do (all the officers, C/O’s and L/C’s) strive to make The Alliance a peaceful, welcoming and harmonious place for our Kinnies.

I would love to see The Alliance continue to grow and to become more represented/recognised amongst the Landroval community (something which we are well on our way to achieving, I do believe). A lot of work goes into our Kinship ‘behind the scenes’ as a Kin as big as ours is at times hard to manage and maintain (even down to the little things like filtering out all the inactive players). For the most part, we have our fantastic Leadership team to thank.

-If you'd like, tell us about yourself IRL.

IRL I’m now a full-time mum to my 6 month old daughter ‘Bean’ (she’s not actually called Bean, this is just her nickname haha! I’m strange, but not that strange!). I’m also just about to finish my last year of University and get my BSc (Hons) Psychology degree. Prior to Bean, I was a Mental Health Support worker, something which I will be returning to, once Bean has run out of ‘firsts’ – thankfully I have the luxury of not having to miss out on all the milestones – I’m a lucky lady! I’m also kind of a crazy cat lady, at the moment we have three cats (Friday – old, fat and smelly – poor boy!, Daisy – chunky, daft and sucks on everything. . . and Tiny – small, mental and likes to walk on/lay on/sleep on your face and never stops purring). I’m not entirely sure if I just happened to pick strange cats, or if I made them strange. . . but we’ll go for the former just for arguments sake!. I’m an avid reader, I still go and run about the countryside as if I’m a child (I’m 28 this year, but I don’t think I’ll ever ‘grow up’) and I love to bake! If you fancy having a go at some of my recipes, they can still be found in the Alliance Cookbook section of the forums. Which reminds me, I should really add some more tasty treats into there someday soon!

- Flo, thank you again for doing this. You're a joy to be around in-game, and we really appreciate all you do for The Alliance.

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